News In Brief

ByCompiledRobert Kilbornand Noel PaulDecember 21, 2000

"The vacuum cycle didn't really dry me off," said Jesco Goebel. "But at least I didn't get injured." This, after the Berlin stuntman finished raising more than $2,000 for charity. By being dunked in a tank of water at a carnival? No. He donned a rubber suit and diver's mask, climbed onto the roof of a Renault sedan, and rode through a car wash. He got deluxe treatment, too: a bath in steaming soapy water, buffing by high-speed brushes, and a hot-wax application.

OK, you run a company that cranks out software for, say, cellular phones, and you need bright young information technology (IT) talent for your staff. Where do you find it? If your company is Helsinki, Finland-based Wapit Ltd., you buy help wanted ads in Aku Ankka, a weekly comic book of Donald Duck episodes. "We've found," says a Wapit executive, "that many of the best IT people read Donald Duck ... and they say their colleagues are huge fans."

Savvy marketers know where the most faithful shoppers live, and they use that information to target their advertising accordingly. After a few rocky years online, e-commerce companies have come to realize such data may not apply to them. According to Columbus, Ohio-based BIGresearch, people in the largest retail markets are not necessarily hot online buying prospects. Example: San Jose, Calif. It's the top e-commerce market but only 31st among those who buy from traditional stores. The top 10 Internet markets, with their "brick and mortar" ranking in parenthesis, according to BIGresearch: